Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/859699
in a Malibu mansion (via helicopter), a rundown motel in the San Fernando Valley (with a sad bar and pool), a casting office with a view of the Hollywood Sign, a busy aerobics studio and the suburban home of a former soap star. The episodes would be party crashing a wealthy Republican fundraiser for Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign, a Russian-Jewish bris, the grand opening of Patio Town (described as the second largest outdoor furniture purveyor in Southern California) and various wrestling venues. In one episode, a moving- out montage featured several characters' homes all at once, as well as a B-movie director's mid-century bungalow. Another episode followed a character racing out of an editing bay with a tape of the show, down halls and through the rooms of a period television station, in homage to a scene from Broadcast News. In addition to all the sets, locations and picture cars, the camera would often catch someone's television screen with footage ranging from the fictional 1980s soap opera Paradise Cove to an equally fictional bad horror film Blood Disco. BUT IS IT REAL? The element of wrestling that is most thematically relevant to Production Design is found in the term kayfabe, the presentation of a staged performance as an authentic situation. The hero in this scenario is known as the face and the villain as the heel. Both are aware in advance of which one will win the match and with which pre-planned moves, much like a play... but with acrobatics. The drama or comedy of the play embellishes the action, pokes fun at stereotypes, and ideally gives the audience reasons to root for the planned winner. Like a television audience, they are given wordless indicators of how to feel about the That was years ago, when I was still a virgin to the ring, before I knew the word kayfabe. Before GLOW happened for the second time. I assumed the Netflix comedy series set in 1985 and called GLOW (an acronym for Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) was going to operate as a spoof of sorts, a fun, campy look at a cheesy corner of American culture. But the pilot script read like a brutally funny manifesto. It was definitely about wrestling, but even more so about friendship, ambition, exploitation, and what it was like to be a working girl in Hollywood in 1985. The inevitable subtext of how little has changed permeated every scene. It was funny, poignant and very real. And the settings! The majority of the story was to take place in the underbelly of Los Angeles, the seedy outskirts of Hollywood that produced a million dashed dreams, adult films and deserted warehouses. A portion of each of the ten episodes would be spent in a neglected 1950s boxing gym where the women train to become wrestlers for cable television (they hope). It's a fictionalized version of what actually occurred. There was also a horde of other period locales, including a visit with a drug-dispensing robot Above, right: The set featured multiple fully functional vintage training areas, rollaway bleachers surrounding the ring, Sam's raised office, a break room, hallway with built-in trophy case, and a large bathroom with showers and locker rooms. Below: Sam (played by Marc Maron) has an office with a view of the gym floor. Preceding pages: The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling in the set for Chavo's Boxing Gym, named after GLOW's wrestling trainer Chavo Guerrero, on Stage 3 at Riverfront Stages in Atwater Village in Los Angeles. The gym and ring were kept neutral to avoid clashing with the 1980s costumes. Inset: Cate Bangs' digital stage plan for the set.